The Sourdough Wars

restored to near-sanity and Officers Tripp and Williamson were satisfied that we really were who we said we were, they did, per my very intelligent suggestion, put out a bulletin on Thompson, and even as we talked, someone came in and said the highway patrol had him.
    Eventually, Officers T and W even trusted us enough to answer a couple of questions we had. They told us they’d turned up at Sally’s bakery in response to an anonymous tip, and they hadn’t turned on their siren because they thought it was a nut call. Just a routine check on a nut call. Nothing ever happened in Sonoma.
    Just as things were going along fine, or as fine as they get when someone’s been murdered, I remembered Robert, Jr., and Today’s Action Woman burst into tears. “She has a kid,” I blubbered.
    Officer Williamson nodded. Apparently, Sally was well known in Sonoma. “We’ve already checked on him. He’s in San Francisco with his father.”
    They asked us a few more questions and then said we could go. “What about Clayton Thompson?” I asked, but the nice officers only shook their heads.
    We were getting into the car when Rob suddenly came alive, like a man coming out of a coma. “My story! Jeez, my story!”
    “Your what?”
    “I’ve got to get to a phone.”
    * * *
    The resulting story was on Page One, of course. He certainly has a nose for news, I thought, a little bitterly, and then I repented. It wasn’t his fault that all this had been unleashed by the Great San Francisco Sourdough Auction. I wished we could run the last few weeks backward like a movie, and start again with all of us sitting at the Sherlock Holmes pub, talking about anything but sourdough.
    Mom called on cue, just as my English muffin popped out of the toaster. “Your father didn’t sleep a wink last night.”
    “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m fine, honest. Rob stayed with me.”
    “Rob! I thought you were done with him, and then he leads you off to some
hinterland
, where you get in more trouble.”
    I was buttering my muffin as we talked. Now I took a bite, and it tasted like fish food. “Gosh, Mom,” I said. “I forgot to feed my fish.”
    And I hung up with a great rush, as if my finny pals were about to give up their collective ghost. Surely one mother would understand another’s need to feed her family.
    But the phone rang before I could do my maternal duty. “Listen, Mom, really—”
    “It’s Rob. Thompson’s been released.”
    “He didn’t do it?” I hadn’t really thought about whether he’d killed Sally or not. I guess I’d just assumed he had.
    “Apparently not. He found the body before we did.”
    “Ah. He was the anonymous tipster.”
    “Right. The brain’s back in gear, I see.”
    “But why not wait for the cops? I don’t get it?”
    “Neither do I, but I’m hoping to find out. He’s agreed to an interview.”
    “Today? But you don’t work on Saturday.”
    “Dammit, I’m on special. Want to come or not?”
    Of course I wanted to come.
    Thompson had asked Rob to meet him, not at his friends’ place in the Castro, but the Stanford Court Hotel. Its lobby bar looks like a St. James Street men’s club, and during the day the guests use it for business meetings. It’s one of my favorite places in San Francisco—elegant without being snooty. Thompson, suited and tied even though it was Saturday, looked as if he belonged. He said, “Mornin’, Rebecca. I’m glad you could join us. Once I started working again, I moved back here—the baby was keepin’ me up.”
    I was sure Rob hadn’t asked permission to bring me, or even mentioned that he intended to. Thompson was a gent, and I had a momentary pang of guilt for thinking him a murderer.
    “Sit down, sit down,” He gestured as if the lobby were his own living room. “Glad to see you, Mr. Burns.”
    We made ourselves comfortable and ordered coffee. “I guess you’re wonderin’ why I agreed to this interview.”
    Rob said nothing.
    “It’s just that I felt kind of stupid about what I did and I wanted to kind of explain. Sort of make a public apology.” We nodded. “It was a dumb-ass thing I did—cowardly. My daddy wouldn’t have been proud of me.”
    “Finding the body must have been pretty nerve-wracking,” I said. “I know, because we did it, too.” Thompson shook his head. “You don’t understand. I didn’t exactly find the body.”
    “But I thought you phoned in the tip.”
    “She was still alive when I got there.”
    Rob took charge of